Lucky Penny

Anybody remember that one episode of How I Met Your Mother back from season 2, where Ted and Robin failed to catch an early flight to Chicago for a job interview? Of all the 208 episodes spanning 9 seasons, that was my personal favorite episode. Great writing, brilliant twists, the acting was still excellent, and the best part of it was how it shines through one theme: fate, which was basically what the whole series stands for. How one single mundane everyday moment and a simple decision, all shaped and constructed the ill-fated conclusion of Ted missing his flight -and how it touches every single one in the gang hilariously and seamlessly.

I think I just had that same chain of events myself -which concluded into something so memorable. It all started with me interviewing a certain bartender last month in Ubud. Then this month, Runi and I are working on some article that needed us to visit the cultured hilly town once again before the long holiday. Long story short, we went there yesterday. About what happened, I’m just gonna break it down…

Had Runi didn’t assign me on writing about Bali’s pork cuisines, I wouldn’t have wanted to come with her to Ubud that day.

Had we didn’t have clients visiting us at the office that morning, we would’ve come to Ubud earlier that day and might’ve missed the heavy traffic around Monkey Forest and beyond.

Had Runi didn’t stop for an article follow up and inspection, we would’ve arrived at the barbeque around lunch time, which probably would make us wait longer for seats and our orders.

Had we eaten slower, we wouldn’t have reached the Pasar Ubud intersection later that afternoon and I’m pretty sure we would’ve opted to go straight home instead.

Had we didn’t stopped and walked through Gootama, we wouldn’t have seen The Night Rooster (Locavore Group’s bar) right at the end of the narrow road and met Raka Ambarawan (Locavore’s mixologist and The Night Rooster’s proprietor) who was walking towards the bar for opening hour that day.

Had Raka didn’t invite us upstairs to his bar and served us four cocktails and two snacks for us to try, Runi wouldn’t have found a cocktail review material and we wouldn’t have talked with Raka until the evening.

Had we left before it was dark, we wouldn’t have met Eelke Plasmeijer (Locavore’s co-founder) who just happened to walk into the bar and eventually joined us.

Meeting Eelke was something that I would never have imagined -especially in such a casual setting. The guy is a genius, a rockstar and a game changer in Bali’s refined culinary scene. At this moment, he’s considered one of the most important figure in Bali and Indonesia’s food culture. You see, Locavore is a groundbreaking restaurant that have just been opened for thre years by Eelke and his two partners Chef Ray Adriansyah and restaurant manager Adi Karmayasa -I met these two last month but they were very busy, and I was there to interview Raka. What makes them considered sensational? Well, you could check this article here. And I get to talk to him. Not just hellos and nice-to-meet-yous, and byes. In that short ten minutes, he actually talked and told us about many things -how the idea of The Night Rooster was formed and how the group’s developing, among other things.

Imagine you visiting the Emirates Stadium in London not on a game day, looking around for some merchandise in the store, when suddenly Dennis Bergkamp walked in to trade a jacket. Or nerdily admiring the Alamillo bridge on your trip to Seville, when suddenly you see Santiago Calatrava was actually sitting on a bench making some weird sketch full of lines. Or coming in to the cinema to watch a movie only to realise that you’re gonna be sitting next to David Fincher.

I digressed… But the bottom line is, in everything that you do, every decisions that you take, whether it’s turning right or left, stopping or keep going, let the universe lead your way. I was still starstruck when we left The Night Rooster that night, lowering my head and holding my knees in disbelief. I was speechless indeed, but if there’s one thing I wanna say about this: I love my job.